Associate Professor, African History

Room: H012, ground floor of the Humanities Building

Phone: +44 (0)24 76150853 (internal extension 50853)

Email: D.P.Branch@warwick.ac.uk

Office hours: Monday 2-3pm; Wednesday 12-1pm.

Research interests

• The Mau Mau rebellion in colonial Kenya (1952-60).
• The political and social history of post-colonial Kenya (with the support of the British Academy).
• Contemporary Kenyan politics.
• Comparative counterinsurgency.
• Loyalism and empire (with the support of the Arts & Humanities Research Council).

I am happy to supervise postgraduate research students interested in any of these areas.

Books

• Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011 (Yale University Press, London & New Haven: 2011).
• Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War and Decolonisation (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York: 2009).

Publications in Refereed Journals and in Edited Collections

• Mau Mau and colonial Kenya

  • 'The Search for the Remains of Dedan Kimathi: The Politics of Death and Memorialization in Post-Colonial Kenya,' Past and Present, 206, supplement 5 'Relics and Remains' (2010), 301-20.
  • ‘The Enemy Within: Loyalists and the War Against Mau Mau’, Journal of African History, 48, 2 (2007), pp.291-315.
  • ‘Loyalists, Mau Mau, and Elections: The First Triumph of the System, 1957-58’, Africa Today, 53, 2 (2006), pp.27-50.
  • ‘Imprisonment and Colonialism in Kenya, c.1930-1952: Escaping the Carceral Archipelago’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 38, 2 (2005), pp.239-65.

• Contemporary and post-colonial Kenyan politics

  • ‘Introduction’ and ‘Conclusion’ [co-authored with Nic Cheeseman] in Daniel Branch, Nic Cheeseman & Leigh Gardner (eds), Our Turn to Eat: Politics Since 1950 (Lit Verlag, Berlin: 2010).
  • 'Democratization, Sequencing and State Failure in Africa: Lessons from Kenya' [co-authored with Nic Cheeseman], African Affairs, 108, 430 (2009), pp.1-26.
  • ‘The Politics of Control in Kenya: Understanding the Bureaucratic-Executive State, 1952-78’ [co-authored with Nic Cheeseman], Review of African Political Economy, 33, 107 (2006), pp.11-31.
  • 'Using Opinion Polls to Evaluate Kenyan Politics, March 2004-January 2005’ [co-authored with Nic Cheeseman], African Affairs, 104, 415 (2005), pp.325-36.

• Comparative counterinsurgency

  • 'Revisiting Counterinsurgency,' Politics and Society, 38, 1 (2010), 3-14 [co-authored with Elisabeth Jean Wood].
  • 'Footprints in the Sand: British Colonial Counterinsurgency and the War in Iraq,' Politics and Society, 38, 1 (2010), 15-34.
  • 'Violence and Counter-Insurgency in Cyprus, 1955-59: A Comparative Perspective,' in Vassilis Gounaris, Stathis Kalyvas & Yannis Stefanidis (eds), Ανορθόδοξοι πόλεμοι. Μακεδονία, Εμϕύλιος, Κύπρος [Irregular Wars: Macedonia, Civil War, Cyprus] (Patakis, Athens: 2009).

Edited collections and special editions

• Co-editor [with Nic Cheeseman and Leigh Gardner] of Our Turn to Eat: Kenyan Politics Since 1950 (Lit Verlag, Berlin: 2010).
• Guest co-editor [with Nic Cheeseman] of Election Fever: Kenya’s Crisis, special edition of Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2, 2 (2008).

Forthcoming Publications

• Empire Loyalists: Histories of Rebellion and Collaboration [with David Anderson].

Undergraduate Teaching

• Empire and Aftermath (HI173)
• Politics and Society in Eastern Africa, 1800-1989 (HI268)
• Conflict and Memory in Post-Colonial Africa (HI31N)

Impact and Public Engagement

See public engagement webpage for more details.

Academic career

• 1997-2000: B.A. History, University of Sussex
• 2001-2002: M.A. African & Asian History, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London
• 2002-2005: DPhil, Modern History, St Peter’s College, University of Oxford
• 2005-2006: Postdoctoral fellow, Program on Order, Conflict and Violence at the Macmillan Center for International & Area Studies, Yale University.
• 2006-2008: Lecturer in history, University of Exeter
• 2008-present: Assistant/associate professor in African History, University of Warwick